Fife Flyers travel to Glasgow Clan on Saturday night (face-off 19.00) aiming to halt an alarming run of six straight Elite League defeats.
Their latest reverse came on Friday night at the hands of their arch rivals, Trade-Mart sponsored Dundee Stars, who skated to a 6-4 victory at the Fife Ice Arena thanks to a treble from American hit-man Spencer Naas.
Tom Coolen, Flyers’ head coach, felt his men played well in the first period and in the last ten minutes his men also played well but he stressed: “It is a 60 minute hockey game.”
For 30 minutes, he said, Fife did what they wanted to do but he said: “It wasn’t good enough. I think that they (Dundee) felt they could come in here and if they stayed with their game plan for 60 minutes then had a chance to beat us and it happened.
“Just what we talked about not doing we did and it gave them (Dundee) opportunities and they took that lead. We showed some pushback and we scored a fourth one but that fifth one killed us.
“All in all our game was not good enough. We have to play 60 minutes. We can’t sit back and think we have got it made because we are not that good.”
Yet, the game started well for the home side who opened the scoring after 2min 41sec through Kyle Osterberg but Stars levelled four minutes later when Naas counted on the power play with Flyers’ skipper, Jonas Emmerdahl, called for tripping.
Collin Shirley edged the home side ahead six minutes later and the scoreline stayed that way until the first break but Stars took only 1min 20sec to level through Anthony Rinaldi and went 3-2 ahead through Nass after 29 minutes.
Back came Flyers with Troy Lajeunesse netting with 40 seconds remaining of the middle session but their joy was short-lived when Drydn Dow was set up by Naas for Stars fourth with 13 seconds remaining of the period.
And it got worst for the Kirkcaldy club when busy Naas claimed his treble on the power play with 49 minutes on the clock.
Flyers, however, refused to throw in the towel and Shirley netted to close the gap with less than four minutes left.
Coach Coolen gambled by pulling goaltender Shane Owen with 1min 27sec remaining to have six skaters and then called a time out in a bid to salvage something from the game but the moves failed when Dow was set up by James Phelan for No 6 with two seconds remaining.
PICTURE: Action from Kirkcaldy thanks to photographer Jillian McDougall and couresty of the Elite League
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